Rain pounds city in afternoon downpour

Nathan Partenza and Megan Levy

Melbourne has had its wettest May day for 17 years, with more rain expected into the weekend.

Twenty-eight millimetres of rain fell on the CBD today, the most in a May day since 1995, while the top temperature of 11 degrees celsius just before 2.30pm made it the city’s coldest May day since 2000.

The average rainfall in Melbourne for the entire month of May is 55.8mm.

Monbulk on Melbourne’s eastern fringes recorded the highest rainfall tally, with 46mm falling between 9am and 7pm.

Duty meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, Dean Sgarbossa, said the rain would continue into tomorrow.

‘‘Heavy rain is likely to persist over the eastern suburbs for most of Friday night while isolated showers are expected right across the Melbourne metropolitan region for the remainder of Friday evening and into Saturday morning,’’ he said.

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‘‘We are expecting a continuation of isolated showers on Saturday but they will tend to scattered during the afternoon as a cold front moves through.’’

Winds have also lashed Melbourne’s bay regions, with gusts reaching up to 100km/h over Port Phillip Bay and 83km/h in Frankston, in the city’s south.

The bureau has issued severe weather warnings for the Wimmera, southwest, north central, central and Gippsland areas.

SES chief operations officer Trevor White said this afternoon the SES had received more than 200 calls mostly from the Geelong, Torquay, Wyndham, Essendon and Sorrento areas.

But he s﻿aid m﻿ore calls would be made as people returned home and discovered damage.

The rain had threatened to play havoc with public transport services.

Metro Trains reported flooding of the underpass at Oakleigh station. Minor delays of up to 10 minutes were also reported on the Frankston line due to a power supply fault.

Flooding blocked the left-hand outbound lane on Footscray Road in West Melbourne near Waterfront Way and there were traffic delays between San Remo and Anderson on Phillip Island Road.

Trams along Swanston Street headed towards Melbourne University were forced to terminate at La Trobe Street due to flooding at Franklin Street.

Rowers were also thrown into the water at Ballarat after their boats capsized in the wild weather conditions.

Several boats tipped at today's Australian Masters Rowing Championships on Lake Wendouree, forcing all races to be cancelled, the Ballarat Courier reported.

And paramedics treated a woman aged in her 60s for hypothermia after she fell into the lake.

Weatherzone meteorologist Alex Zadnik said the temperature had reached about 10.5 degrees in the city by 1pm, making it currently the coldest day since July 2008 and the coldest May in 12 years.

Victoria's alpine resorts, which are gearing up for the official start of the snow season on June 9, are welcoming the expectation of heavy snow falls in the high country tonight.

Mr Efron said Mt Baw Baw would see the most snow fall over the next 12 hours.

Snow is expected to fall above an elevation of 1100 metres today, delivering between 20 and 30 centimetres of snow to the resorts, including Falls Creek, Mount Hotham and Mount Buller.

"Whether it's going to stay on the ground until the opening of the ski season, I guess we'll have to wait and see. Sometimes it melts before the start," bureau forecaster Dean Stewart said.